During the last decades economists have noticed the increased power of middle-class consumers and call it a key megatrend (The World Bank, 2023). Scholars notice middle-class consumers changing their purchase habits and leaning more towards hedonic values than the utilitarian (Kuman, et al., 2021), aiming for social power and self-improvement (Eckhardt, et al., 2015). These changes have caused the emergency of masstige strategies among brands which refers to affordable luxury, or the “sweet spot between mass and class” (Silverstein, Fiske, 2003). Masstige strategies that are focused on the powerful middle-class are found to be radically different from the luxury (Paul, 2015) and needs clear separate research insights (Rodrigues, Rodrigues, 2019; Kim, et al., 2019; Das, et al., 2022). Ephemeral communication in social media is an exclusively important channel for masstige brands as people tend to spend longer time watching ephemeral content and remember better the message (Nimwegen, Bergman, 2019). This thesis fills the research gap and finds the relationship between ephemeral social media content, masstige strategies and consumers associations of it. The research will delve into how consumers perceive the messages conveyed by masstige brands in their Instagram Stories. This research will involve a triangulation approach, combining both qualitative content analysis and quasi-experiment.

Authors:
Sigita Kamašauskė, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Lithuania

About the Presenter(s)
Ms. Sigita Kamašauskė is a fourth-year doctoral candidate at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University's Faculty of Creative Industries. Her research focuses on the intersection of fashion communication and the concept of ephemerality, evident in both h

See this presentation on the full schedule – On Demand Schedule

Bookmark